To say that I learned A LOT in this course would be an understatement. I feel that my learning was grounded in constructivist principles in that I learned through creation, through trial and error, through frustration, and finally through satisfaction in creating lessons, activities, reflections, charts, and more that showcase my understanding of how to effectively integrate technology into the classroom.
I have a new lens on which to view the integration of technology. Tools and resources which I already use have taken on new applications and I have discovered a treasure trove of new tools and resources that I cannot wait to try out. One of the most exciting and frustrating things about technology and digital content is that it is constantly changing and improving. During my work in modules 7 & 8 I had an opportunity to evaluate a couple of online resources that I have used in my classroom the last few years and realized that they are still good, they were great 4 years ago, and that I now feel confident that I can create something better, more engaging, full of learning for my students. I think this is the take away for me professionally and for my craft. Constant evaluation and inquiry to make sure tools and resources you are integrating are meeting the needs of your learners. I feel the readings in Robyler provided a solid theoretical foundation for my work in the course. I referenced my feelings as a constructivist learner earlier and I believe the Robyler text provided a foundation for what works well for 21st century learners. In addition, readings and articles found through simply searching show that those who know about tech are iterating the same ideas. As a final reflection, there are two things that I enjoyed the most about this course. The first was the relevance of the work we were doing. I have used two of the activities in my classroom already. The second was the inspiration and learning that I gained from all of my classmates. It excites me for the future of education that there are so many creative, hard working education professionals out there. Thank you all. Blog Self Evaluation Content 60/70 I feel that my blog posts were thoughtful and contained content that was relevant and helpful to others who viewed it. I feel that I would land somewhere between proficient and outstanding. Readings and Resources 20/20 I used references to support my thoughts from the textbook and additional sources including videos and graphics. I used appropriate APA citation for sources. Timeliness 15/20 Again, I feel I would be somewhere in between proficient and outstanding. I did complete all of the posts. Timeliness, unfortunately, is not my very best quality. I like to think that I have others that help to compensate for this. At least 2/3, but not all of my posts were made in time for others to thoughtfully comment. Responses to Other Students 25/30 I did respond to at least two other students on every topic. I feel that I fall short of outstanding because not all of my responses were as substantive as the rubric specifies. Overall Self Evaluation Grade 120/140
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In the past I have thought of assistive technology as extras or add ons that must be purchased and could possibly be expensive to maintain and update, after some brief research this week I now know how wrong I was. Assistive technologies according to Amy Borovoy are "simply tools to help people with learning or motor disabilities complete everyday tasks. In schools, assistive tech can mean the difference between a student falling behind or being able to successfully work alongside other kids in an inclusion model". In education specifically, the options out there are staggering. I found the database TechMatrix to be particularly intriguing. It is a database of over 400 accessibility tools available to help make education accessible to all. The search features allow you to narrow by grade level, subject, and disability. If you have not had a chance to look at it, it is definitely worth checking out.
For this blog entry I have chosen to focus on the accessibility tools that come standard with Windows 10. Let me say that I was pleasantly surprised at the number of options available and how easy they were to understand and use. Microsoft's website provides a comprehensive overview of their tools and the different applications for them. To find the accessibility tools it is as simple as typing in Ease of Access into the Windows search bar. You are then taken to a control panel that allows you to customize your computer. I will be focusing on three areas of disability and the accessibility tools available to help: vision, hearing, and physical disabilities. The video below offers a great overview of the accessibility features in Windows 10. I particularly like how the narrator discusses that at times we may all "be disabled" or need assistance if for example you are cooking or holding a baby. Accessibility features are not only for the disabled, but also to get the most functionality out of your device or computer.
Vision For people with vision impairments Microsoft offers features such as:
Hearing Windows 10 offer several options for the hearing impaired.
Physical
References Borovoy, A.E. (2014, January, 17). 5-Minute Film Festival: The Power of Assistive Technology. Retrieved from https://www.edutopia.org/blog/film-festival-assistive-technology There are many factors that keep teachers from effectively integrating technology in their classrooms in all subject areas, social studies has it's own particular set of challenges. One challenge teacher's face is time. No one hands a social studies teacher a prepackaged year's worth of technology sources proven to be effective for student learning. Teachers spend hours and hours scouring the vast array of resources available to them to try to find ones that fit in with their standards, hoping that they are as engaging and effective as they think they could be. And, with as rapidly as technology changes and new digital content is created, what is the best source one year may be obsolete the next year. One way teachers can try to make this process a little less time consuming is to develop a network of other teachers who are also committed to finding and integrating effective technology and digital content. One of the very best resources teachers have is each other. Another challenge that is particularly unique to social studies is the teachers themselves. Zhao (2007) found that teachers’ technical expertise and professional experience in using technology is a major barrier to integrating technology in their classrooms. Social studies is a broad discipline, encompassing many different subjects including economics, sociology, geography, anthropology, and many others. Teachers are highly educated in a particular branch of social studies, not typically in technology. Social studies teachers often lack the technological pedagogical content knowledge that makes technology integration effective. TPACK is a framework introduced by Mishra and Koehler that describes the intersection of content knowledge, pedagogical knowledge, and technical knowledge. The interaction of these bodies of knowledge, both theoretically and in practice, produces the types of flexible knowledge needed to successfully integrate technology use into teaching (Koehler & Mishra, 2009). How do teacher's address this challenge? On an already full plate, developing their TPACK is one more thing to add to the mix. Challenging, but necessary in my opinion. If professional development opportunities are not available they should be sought out. Integrating technology can be difficult for many reasons, but regardless of the subject it is important to consider how influential technology is in all other areas of our students lives and make effective integrating it a priority.
References Koehler, M. J., & Mishra, P. (2009). What is technological pedagogical content knowledge. Contemporary issues in technology and teacher education, 9(1), 60-70. Zhao, Y. (2007). Social studies teachers' perspectives of technology integration. Journal of technology and teacher education, 15(3), 311. "Social studies is the integrated study of the social sciences and humanities to promote civic competence....The primary purpose of social studies is to help young people develop the ability to make informed and reasoned decisions for the public good as citizens of a culturally diverse, democratic society in an interdependent world" (Roblyer, p. 336), These sound like very important reasons to prioritize the teaching of social studies in our schools, yet many schools, teachers, and students find social studies difficult to incorporate and engage in. This is in many cases because social studies is not directly assessed on high-stakes tests (Zhao, 2007) and students find social studies to be boring and irrelevant to their lives (Heafner, 2004). The high-stakes testing issue will not be solved by individual teachers or school districts, but student interest can be addressed, and one way to solve this problem is through the use of technology to teach social studies content. There are several reasons and ways a social studies teacher can incorporate technology into their teaching of social studies. Reasons to incorporate technology in social studies instruction:
Zhao, Y. (2007). Social studies teachers' perspectives of technology integration. Journal of technology and teacher education, 15(3), 311.
Making social studies relevant and accessible to students is a challenge, but incorporating technology is one way to help students learn social studies content. References Heafner, T. (2004). Using technology to motivate students to learn social studies. Contemporary Issues in Technology and Teacher Education, 4(1), 42-53. Roblyer, M.D. (2016). Integrating educational technology into teaching. (7 ed). Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc Zhao, Y. (2007). Social studies teachers' perspectives of technology integration. Journal of technology and teacher education, 15(3), 311. Many students remember playing "Oregon Trail" simulation game in elementary school. I remember putting the floppy disk in the disk drive and waiting impatiently for it to load, I remember sitting on the edge of my seat waiting to see if my wagon would indeed make it across the Mississippi River. Teachthought.com lists "Oregon Trail" as perhaps the most widely played and beloved educational video game to date. Fast forward 25 years and the landscape in educational games has changed DRAMATICALLY. The options are dizzying and overwhelming to a teacher trying to vet the best games to introduce to students and include in class. Certainly, students will seek out video games on their own that are not related to education, but there are some commonly recognized advantages of using video games in classrooms. (McClarty, Orr, Frey, Dolan, Vassileva, & McVay, 2012) cite the following five advantages when considering integrating educational games into the classroom:
References J Shapiro. (2014, June 13). Benefits of gaming: what research shows. Retrieved from https://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2014/06/13/benefits-of-gaming-what-research-shows/ McClarty, K. L., Orr, A., Frey, P. M., Dolan, R. P., Vassileva, V., & McVay, A. (2012). A literature review of gaming in education. Gaming in education, 1-36. T Heick. (2012, September 12). A brief history of video games in education. Retrieved from http://www.teachthought.com/uncategorized/a-brief-history-of-video-games-in-education/ According to webwise.ie an Acceptable Use Policy (AUP) is "is an important document which governs students' use of internet at school and covers a wide range of issues surrounding the rights, responsibilities and privileges - as well as sanctions - connected with computer use" ("What is an Acceptable Use Policy," n.d.).
The internet offers so many amazing opportunities for today's student. Gone are the card catalog and color coded index cards strewn everywhere, instead students have an incredible wealth of information at their literal fingertips. As their teachers, it is imperative that in addition to teaching them to read and to calculate that we teach them how to appropriately use the awesome resource that is technology. A clear and consistent Acceptable Use Policy is an important part of teaching today's learners to become responsible digital citizens. Most school districts and schools by extension have an Acceptable Use Policy in place. When becoming familiar with your school's Acceptable Use Policy, it is important to know that it should include the following components as outlined by Common Sense Education:
Resources Acceptable use policies. (n.d.) retrieved from https://www.webwise.ie/teachers/what-is-an-acceptable-use-policy-2/ What is an acceptable use policy? (n.d.) retrieved from https://www.webwise.ie/teachers/what-is-an-acceptable-use-policy-2/
As I began to plan, read, and think about this assignment I felt that I already had an automatic bias towards using multimedia in the classroom and could go on for longer than any of you would care to watch about why I think it can be so powerful, but instead I decided to see what others had to say about benefits of using multimedia in the classroom.
Huneycutt (2013), a blog writer for the National Math and Science Initiative, stated that overall “integrating technology in the classroom helps prepare our student for the elaborate world they will face going forward” and highlights four specific benefits to using technology in the classroom:
As important as integrating multimedia in our classroom is, we have to remember that it is not the magic formula that will automatically boost student achievement. Media is simply a tool, it is up to the teacher to make the decisions about how and when to integrate technology to its maximum potential. References: Huneycutt, T. (2013, October, 8). Technology in the classroom: the benefits of blended learning. Retrieved from http://www.nms.org/Blog/TabId/58/PostId/188/technology-in-the-classroom-the-benefits-of-b Edutopia. (2008, March, 16). Why integrate technology into the classroom curriculum?: the reasons are many. Retrieved from https://www.edutopia.org/technology-integration-introduction I was recently reminded by my mother of all the hours I spent playing "school" as a child. I remember I was OVER THE MOON when I got a real grade book one Christmas with all of the pretty little columns to be filled with check marks and letter grades.
Fast forward to 2017 and the thought of a paper grade book makes me shudder in terror! I cannot imagine life without the basic suite. When I worked in the business world I liked to say that there was not much that couldn't be organized, analyzed, or sorted out in an Excel spreadsheet and Powerpoint was my best friend for those conference call presentations. I now use the Google Basic Suite more than Microsoft and I have to say my love for Google is borderline ridiculous. Not only do I use it in my classroom and teach my students to use it also, I use it for graduate school, and my personal life. The most beautiful thing about it is they all connect to each other!!! In my classroom I cannot count the number of times I have thrown a quick picture onto a Google slide and asked my students to quick write about it, or created a shared presentation with my grade level team to teach the math lesson we happen to be working on. The collaboration capabilities that technologies like the Basic Suite have opened up for teachers is amazing. I can share a Google Doc with a friend who works in Chicago and she can add her reflections on the lesson or idea and collectively come up with something better than we ever could have independently. I can only imagine when thinking about the innovation that has taken place in the last 30 years to replace those old paper grade books, what the future will hold for ourselves and our students. I think it is a testament to the framework that the Basic Suite provides to organizations that the primary functions of word processing, data storage and analysis, and presentation are still strongly entrenched in how we preform our jobs, they have just been updated along the way. I am not a lifelong educator. I am an adamant lover of learning in all forms, and this passion is what I believe led me to become a teacher, well that and summers off! I began my career post bachelors degree in a large Fortune 50 company and had the opportunity to work in several different functions within the company, the majority of it spent in business development. One of my biggest frustrations while working there was our constant shifting focus to chase the next initiative (or trend) being thrown at us. I felt like I never had time to master one thing or reach my goals before it was time to move on to something new. I (wrongly!) assumed I would be leaving that behind when I left and went into education. I now know that change is constant and priorities are a moving target no matter what industry you work in. I would like to believe that through maturity and experience I have learned that it is important to be intentional and mindful about adaptation and incorporation when we are presented with new directives or ideas. It is through this lens that I am trying to view the upcoming trends in education technology. All of them are incredibly exciting, possibly revolutionary, and inform some of the decisions I will make about my classroom and my pedagogy. I, however, immediately jump to... "How can I do that?" "What would that look like in my classroom?" "Oh my gosh, this is SO COOL, I am going to start tomorrow, my students will love it." To help protect my students from the anxiety and frustration I used to feel when something new was given to me on a daily basis, I will be thoughtful and mindful about how I could see the following trends being incorporated into my 5th grade classroom:
It is exciting to be an educator at this point in time, we are on the brink of some amazing changes and advances in education. I am especially excited for the future generation of students who will be pioneers in the new education frontier. The New Media Consortium. (2016). NMC/CoSN Horizon Report > K-12 Edition. Retrieved from https://www.nmc.org/publication/nmc-cosn-horizon-report-2016-k-12-edition/ |
AuthorMy name is Rebecca Davis. I love learning and I hope to inspire the next generation to do the same. Archives
April 2017
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